War and Revolution 931Alexandra’s great favorite was Grigory Rasputin (1872-1916), a
debauched “holy man.” Claiming occult power and the ability to heal
Alexei’s hemophilia, Rasputin had moved gradually into the inner circle of
court life. On one occasion, he predicted that one of Alexei’s spells would
shortly subside, and it did. To the consternation of the tsar’s ministers, the
influence enjoyed by the man the tsarina called “our friend” became a mat
ter of state. In December 1916, noble conspirators, who feared Rasputin’s
influence on military operations, put what they thought was enough poison
into his many drinks to kill a cow. When Rasputin seemed almost unfazed,
they shot him repeatedly and smashed his skull in a protracted struggle.
Food shortages eroded the revival of the workers’ patriotism that had
accompanied the beginning stages of the war. The growth of public organi
zations, which opened up a larger public sphere for discussion and debate,
helped mobilize opposition to autocracy. Cooperative associations formed
by workers to resist high prices had 50,000 members by the end of 1916.
Some workers on the War Industries Committee pushed for greater mili
tancy. The Bolsheviks found support among industrial workers. Attacks on
the management of the war rang out in the Duma, as well as in the Union
of Towns and the Union of the Zemstvos. In December 1916 the latter
passed a resolution calling on the Duma to stop cooperating with the tsar
and demanded ministerial responsibility. Liberals remained paralyzed, how
ever, cowed by tsarist repression amid increased worker militancy.
For the moment, the tsar and the liberals needed each other. Outright rev
olution or violent repression seemed equally dangerous to both. The state
needed the continued participation of voluntary committees and agencies
of local self-government in order to keep the state from collapsing into
shortage-induced anarchy. Liberal-dominated committees and agencies
required the centralized apparatus of the state to carry out their work.
Food shortages reached a peak during the harsh winter of 1916—1917.
Peasants hoarded their grain. Police repression of strikes helped close
the ranks of workers against the government. In Lithuania, nationalists
demanded autonomy within the empire, and some nationalist agitation
occurred in other Russian borderlands as well. In 1916 Muslims in Turk
istan in Central Asia rose up in arms against Russian rule after the govern
ment attempted to move a quarter of a million people to factories near the
front. Increasing anger at the continued arrival of Russian settlers in Turk
istan also played a role in the unrest. These occurrences revealed the com
plexity of the problem of nationalism in the Russian Empire.
Alexander Kerensky, (1881-1970), a lawyer, and leader of the Socialist
Revolutionaries (see Chapter 18), denounced the war in a speech whose
daring rhetoric had never been heard in the Duma. Some loyal nobles now
urged reforms. But Nicholas replaced members of the Progressive Bloc with
uncompromising reactionaries. He and his family withdrew into retreat,
leaving the government floundering like a rudderless boat in high seas.